Research

Bioremediation: The Ability of Psuedomonas Bacteria to Clean Up an Oil Spill

The objective of our research was to discover whether or not using the bacteria Pseudomonas to clean up an oil spill is effective. The process of using bacteria or other microorganisms to clean up pollution is known as bioremediation. We ran a three-factor Design of Experiment (D.O.E.) to see which factor; water, oil, or location, had the greatest effect on the bacteria's ability to clean up the oil. We found that each factor had some effect on the bacteria's ability to clean up the oil spill. The factor that had the greatest effect was the type of oil used. The two types of oil used were motor oil (refined) and crude (unrefined). The environment that had the greatest decrease in the amount of oil at the end of our testing was a freshwater shoreline contaminated with unrefined oil.